REVIEWS—THE HAND-BOOK OP TORONTO. 507 



only flourish in certain stages of society. The people Tvho have snapped asunder 

 all the ties of kindred, who have done violence to all the fond endearing associa- 

 tions "whicli bound them with romantic enthusiasm to the place of their birth, — 

 the hearths and the homes of their sires, — and have been rocked on the wide ocean 

 that they might seek a home in the far west, — cannot again for years enjoy that 

 elasticity of spirit, nor that sense of fixedness which form a basis for the cultiva- 

 tion of warm, lasting friendship. Tliey have made one change, and they know not 

 how soon they may make another; and any feelings of sociality with them is but 

 a fitful, transient gl-eam of the sunshine of the soul bursting through those endear- 

 ing memories which link them so inseparably to the joys, the sorrows, and the 

 early associations of their Fatherland, — 



'Tis evanescent, fleeting, transient, 



As the thin, fleecy clouds, which float around. 



The setting sun's ethereal temple, 



As through the gorgeous golden peristyle. 



Paved with enamelled radiance, he retires 



Amidst the dazzling splendors of his own 



Refulgent beams. 



Or if they succeed in business here, and have the prospect of permanency before 

 them, the social feelings are too often kept subservient to the one grand aim of 

 acquiring wealth and a name, in the land of their adoption. Whatever, therefore, 

 does not either directly or incidentally conduce to this absorbing desire is left in 

 abeyance until a more convenient season, and thus a state of mind is gradually 

 superinduced, the very antithesis of sociality in its broad expansive sense." 



BiograpMcal notices of distinguished, singular, or notorious char- 

 acters always constitute a piquant element in local histories, and such 

 have not been entirely omitted here ; though we doubt not our author 

 has still more recherche materials in reserve for future editions. Hii 

 slighter marginal sketches are meanwhile full of character. An ana- 

 lysis of the materials of which the Council of Public Instruction 

 is composed occurs on page 128, and there we have such a sketch of a 

 member, dressed in a little, but not brief, authority : his conduct 

 beiiJg, in our author's estimation, one of the evils incident to a life- 

 appointment to such a Board: — "It gives some members an opportunity 

 to assume dictatorial airs, as if they alone were the wise, and wisdom 

 would die with them ;" as is accordingly exemplified in the Member's 

 treatment of " a thoroughly educated and spirited young gentleman." 

 The absence of specific individuality here is calculated to add an 

 agreeable mystery to the portraiture ; the reader having before him on 

 the same page the list of Right Reverends, Reverends, Honorables, 

 and Esquires, composing the Board which includes the embodiment of 

 dictatorial airs and wisdom so flatteringly sketched off in this H.B. style. 

 "Which of all the Hon. and Rev. conclave can it possibly be ? 



